06 BERKHAMSTED COMMON. 



their carriages and dog-carts ; shopkeepers from Berk- 

 hamsted and farmers in their gigs ; labourers on foot 

 tested the reality of what they saw by wandering over 

 the Common, and cutting morsels of the flowering gorse, 

 to prove, as they said, that the land was their own 

 again. Thus were the 430 acres restored to the 

 Common, and two miles of iron fences removed. It 

 was said that the erection of these iron fences had cost 

 more than a thousand pounds. Their removal entailed 

 a very heavy expenditure on Mr. Augustus Smith. 

 There could not have been a more direct and deliberate 

 challenge to Lord Brownlow, and it was to be expected 

 that, within three days of the demolition, he would 

 commence an action of trespass against Mr. Smith for 

 forcibly pulling down the fences. Later in the proceed- 

 ings of the case, Lord Brownlow's counsel endeavoured 

 to raise prejudice against Mr. Smith by a vigorous 

 protest against what he called the lawless proceeding 

 of removing the whole of the fences, in lieu of raising 

 an issue by removing a single bar. The Judge who 

 tried the case Lord Eomilly was not to be influenced 

 by any such argument. He intimated to the counsel 

 that the demolition of the fences was no more violent 

 or reprehensible an act than their erection, if Lord 

 Brownlow was not in his legal right, and that the issue 

 of the suit would determine which of the two acts was 

 unjustifiable. Subsequent events showed the wise and 

 sound policy of pulling down the whole of the fences, for 

 Lord Brownlow, who brought the action of trespass, 

 died before the case could be heard and determined, and 



